Denethor II
Denethor, son of Ecthelion II; the ruling Steward of Gondor at the time of the War of the Ring
Name and Lineage
Denethor II — son of Ecthelion II, and the twenty-sixth and last of the ruling Stewards of Gondor in the Third Age — was in his prime among the greatest of his line: “a proud man, high in his own regard, and in his strength of will the captain of the white. He was of noble bearing and had some foresight, and in his old age his wisdom grew”. He was of the Dúnedain, “of the house of the Stewards, descended from the faithful lords”, and he ruled Gondor with a high hand during the long slow war of the “last days”.
The Steward and His Griefs
- He was the eagle-eyed warden of the South-kingdom throughout the decades of the war, the friendless, steel-eyed lord whom Gandalf himself found hard matter to deal with; he “spoke wisely” and held his court high, “the vigilant guardian of the realm, the last Steward in the long line of the Ruling Stewards”.
- His griefs broke him by degrees: he loved his wife Finduilas (who died young of the shadow of the sea and the grief of the wars); and above all things he loved Boromir, his eldest, the “proudest and most valorious”, whom he sent to the Council at Elrond in his own place — and who would not come back.
The Shadow on the White
- The Palantír: in secret Denethor used the seeing-stone of Minas Tirith, the Palantír of the Seven, to strive with the far-sight of the Enemy. In that long duel of wills against the Lord of the Barad-dûr he could not prevail — “the Stones do not lie, and he read in them the works of his own weapon” — and the sight of the coming war age-loaded him with despair, “a glaive of fear” that cut his judgment. Yet even so he was no traitor, no lover of Sauron: “I have no hope, but I will not yield, nor will I depart from my stewardship”.
- The coming of the King: to the Steward’s will, Aragorn (the Heir of Elendil, whose return would end the Stewards’ right) was a dreaded rival, and Denethor refused to see in the wild ranger the King that was to come: “the Steward is the King’s deputy”, he told Gandalf, and he held his sons and his city as his own beyond the rule of the line of Elendil.
The Pyre
- When Boromir was lost, and then Faramir was struck down with the Black Breath in the defence of Osgiliath, Denethor’s heart broke. Supposing the war lost, he resolved to burn himself and his dying son upon a litter of wood within the tomb of the Stewards, according “the custom of the kings of old”. Gandalf and Pippin — with the aid of the hobbit’s warding-cry — wrested Faramir from the flames, and told Denethor he might not burn his son against the will of Gondor’s healers; and the Steward, seeing his despair mocked (“if the King is come, then the Stewardship is at an end”), sprang upon the pyre and perished in the flames on the day the battle of the Pelennor was won.
- The judgment: his death was darkness to his kin’s memory, yet he was buried with honour in the Hallows of Minas Tirith; and the wise, considering the “darkness of the Mordor-stones” and the grief of his two sons, say that “fain would he have been spared the difficulty of these times” — a victorious shadow of the ancient Stewards, undone by the fear he would not share.
Significance
Denethor is the tragic Steward of the end-times — strong, noble, and genuinely devoted to Gondor, yet ruined by the secret duel of the Palantír and the loss of his sons: the counterweight to Aragorn’s claim, the lord who “would not admit the return of the King”, and whose despair ends in the pyre. The fall of the Stewards is accomplished when the returned king takes the White City.